


Awake

by Betty Cratchit (SturdyWoolSocks)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: April Showers Challenge, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-25
Updated: 2008-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:21:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SturdyWoolSocks/pseuds/Betty%20Cratchit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy just wants a normal weekend, but Spike has other ideas... and a really big, possibly-mystical problem.  Can Buffy find a way to fix it before it drives them both crazy?  And what's it going to take to get some sleep?</p>
<p>[Originally posted @ Elysian Fields, April 2008.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awake

**Author's Note:**

> There were some weird formatting errors and omissions from when I imported this from the other archive -- fixed 'em now!

Halfway through a rerun of Friends, there’s a knock on the door.

Well, it’s less of a knock and more of a violent pounding. 

Actually, it’s reminiscent of the kind of Halloween special that Buffy certainly doesn’t admit to watching.  The kind where the dumb blonde in the clingy top answers the door even though it’s the middle of the night and there’s obviously a knife-wielding psychopath on the other side and... so anyway, it probably isn’t Buffy’s mom come home early from her conference in North Dakota.

Buffy adjusts the strap of her camisole where it’s slipping down her shoulder, mutes the TV, fixes her ponytail, and, because the pounding just doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop, finally opens the front door.  Immediately, she wishes she hadn’t.

“Please, I’ve got to see... Slayer,” Spike’s frantic attitude loosens.  He blinks like he didn’t expect her standing there in her own doorway.  “Oh.”

He’s three steps in the door already, despite the fact that it’s after eleven and there’s really no sun to run from, and Buffy’s first instinct is to punch him straight back over the threshold.  Her second instinct is to grab him by the shoulders before he collapses, because now that he’s stopped moving she can see that he’s even paler than usual and swaying where he stands.

She doesn’t do either, just eyeballs him carefully and asks, “What are you doing here?”

“Slayer.  _Buffy_ ,” he’s been looking at her this whole time, but the fact of her presence doesn’t quite seem to have sunk in yet.  “Buffy, I can’t sleep.”

“Um.”

His eyes are wide and a little bloodshot and very, very blue.

She has to step around him to close the door.  “Um, okay, and again, _what_ are you doing here?  Because if you think I’m gonna read you a bedtime story, you’ve got another thing coming... and I’ll give you a hint: it has a tendency to splinter.”

“I -- Bloody hell,” He shakes his head, “how could I possibly have forgotten how thick you are?”

“ _Excuse_ me?”  Buffy takes exception to being insulted like this when, after all, he’s the one who’s come barging into her house in the middle of the night.  

“Right, of course, because this is _Spike_ talking and I couldn’t possibly have a real problem that I might need your help with.  For fuck’s sake.  When I say I can’t sleep,” Spike enunciates very clearly, severely invading her personal space as he does so, “I mean that I haven’t slept for _six fucking_ _days_ , Slayer.”

They’re standing toe to toe now – because he’s backed her into the closed door, not because Buffy feels particularly like picking a fight with a vampire in her own house and putting her mom’s furniture in danger – and the last part is yelled directly into Buffy’s face.  Possibly there’s flying spittle.  Buffy just crosses her arms and stares right back.

“And, strangely, I’m still not volunteering to read you Alice in Wonderland.”

“I know.”  That’s all the fight that was in him; with a sigh, Spike lets his legs fold up and buries his head in his hands.

“’M sorry; I’m not thinking straight.  I just... I dunno.  Guess I thought this was the kind of weird stuff you and the Slayerettes took care of.  Didn’t get much past that, really.”

It's the apology more than anything that convinces Buffy to take this seriously. A healthy, sane Spike would never, ever apologise and manage to sound like he meant it. And now that she really looks at him, it's obvious that something is seriously wrong. Spike doesn't just look exhausted; he's noticeably gaunt and his hands shake as he runs them compulsively through his hair. And his hair... he hasn't even bothered to gel it, or if he has, he's long since managed to tug and fidget it out. Buffy sits down next to him on the floor. Buffy sits down next to him on the floor.

“Okay.”

“What’s that then, luv?”  Spike glances over with bleary irony.

“I said, okay.”  All right, deep breath, Buffy can do this; just fix the problem without smacking him around.  For once. _Or at least, wait until he’s fixed to smack him around._ “I’ll help.  What do you want me to do?”

"Christ. I dunno." The worst thing is that Spike's voice sounds as grey as he looks. "I've already tried everything I can think of, like I said, and it's done sod-all. Well, I haven't tried the bedtime story bit, but... yeah. Didn’t think; just sorta figured I’d get here and it’d be all right.”

“And it’s been _six_ _days_? With no sleep at all?”

“Yeah.  Even tried to drink myself unconscious – or, you know, to death.  At this point it’d be a bloody improvement.  But I just... I can’t.  Sleep.  It’s like... ‘s like my brain just won’t stop nattering, scary stuff, all the time.  Partly why I came here, I think – somebody to talk to; keep myself from going batty.”

Spike lowers his head between his knees and groans.  When nothing else seems forthcoming, Buffy fishes around for conversation.

“Sooo... shouldn’t you be, like, crazy by now?  I think I learned on Boston Legal that after five days without sleeping you go crazy or they declare you legally insane or something.”

Spike just shrugs.  “Well, I reckon I need less sleep than normal people, regularly.  Creature of the night an’ all.  It took me a few days to figure out that something was really off.”

“Though,” he adds as an afterthought, without looking up, “there are the hallucinations.”

A beat passes.

“Hallucinations of what, exactly?”

“Oh, this an’ that.  Things out of the corner of my eye, mostly.  Unless,” Spike looks momentarily hopeful, “you really are keeping great furry gerbil-type things in the kitchen now?”

“Uh.  Nope, still gerbil-free.”

“Yeah, I thought not.  Pity. It started a few days back, just twitchy little glimpses.  They’re getting worse, though.”

“So, actually, you _are_ crazy.”

“Lil’ bit, yeah.”

“Oh.”

Spike slumps a little lower; Buffy almost reaches out to catch him before it occurs to her that he’s obviously still conscious and capable of catching himself.

Maybe he’s currently too exhausted to be an asshole, but he’s still conscious and still evil and therefore not someone she ought to be catching even if he jumped out a window.  Though, from the grimace he’s wearing, he might be considering jumping as his next option.

“God, you look really crappy.”

This gets a wry laugh. “Thanks, love.”

“No, I mean you look really, really bad.  Like, you’re turning sort of greenish white and are you gonna puke on my floor?  ‘Cause I am _so_ not cleaning up vampire puke.  Ergh.” Her nose scrunches up at the very idea.

“Vampires don’t puke, believe me, or I already would’ve.  Christ.  ‘F I look half as bad as I feel, I’m sorry you have to look at me.”

“Technically, I could just kick you out of my house.”

He swivels to look right at her, and there’s something compelling about him.  It’s probably the reason she hasn’t killed him yet, not even when he really deserved it.

“Don’t.  Please.”

Buffy wouldn’t, really; and again, she’s not going to look too closely at the issue in case she discovers that she prefers healthy, mostly-sane Spike to dead and dusted Spike.  Bastard.  It took some nerve to show up at the Slayer’s house looking like death re-frozen and expecting her to do something about it.

“Can I...” She coughs and tries again with more confidence, “can I actually do something here? Or did you just come to whine at me?”

“I _came_ ‘cause the idea of talking to somebody, even to you, was better than going crazy alone in a crypt and dusting myself, which was quickly becoming the other option.  Plus I hoped you’d be feelin’ charitable enough to help.  You don’t have to be such a bloody bitch about it.”

“Right.” Even though Spike hadn’t said it like he was being mean, that sort of stung.  “Okay, I’ll call Giles and the gang first thing in the morning and we’ll get with the research, but I’m not gonna bother anybody this late.  Unless you’re going to be dead before then?”  It’s not a completely unpleasant thought...

“’M already dead, and I’ve been like this for six days already.  It’ll hold a little longer.”

Well, it was a slim hope, anyway.

“Good.  Or, uh, whatever.  Not that good.  But one of us at least has to get some sleep.  Mom’s out of town, so I’ll take her bed and you can use my room.”  Buffy stands and reaches out to heave Spike to his feet as well.

He braces against the wall instead, and very nearly looks amused.  “Use it... for what?”

_Uh_.  Buffy tries not to gawk at him, because she’s sure it makes her look like a goldfish.

“For rest!  Or something.” She hadn’t considered what an insomniac vampire was expected to do with the Slayer’s bedroom, exactly.  Her mom raised her to be hospitable, was all, and anyways shouldn’t he be grateful that she hadn’t just left him on the porch to sizzle?   “Just... Don’t try anything weird, and don’t wander around my house while I’m sleeping... and don’t touch anything in my room, either, or I’ll dust you myself.  And DON’T go through my drawers!”

“Buffy,” he raises his hands in a gesture of surrender, “I’m barely gonna make it up the stairs, let alone have the energy to fool around with all your girly stuff once I get there.  Anyway, why not just give me Joyce’s room if you’re worried about my evil ways or what all?”

“Actually, it’s your vampiric perversion I’m worried about.  And I can’t give you my mom’s bed, that’d just be... icky.”

Spike contemplates her for a little while before seeming to conclude that he’s in no fit state to understand the twisted workings of Buffy Summers.

“So I take your bed instead.  Dandy.”  With a nod that almost approximates his usual snarkiness, he hauls himself upstairs and shuts Buffy’s bedroom door with a snap.

Left gaping after him and still not entirely sure how she’s ended up with the living dead living in her bedroom, Buffy decides that the best plan is to go to sleep and hope the problem goes away.

 

“Buffy?”

Four hours later, it’s apparent that the problem hasn’t gone away at all.  The problem, in the form of a tousle-haired, barefoot Spike, has in fact padded into the room where Buffy was, until a few seconds ago, peacefully asleep.  _Huh.  Spike has toes_.  Groggily, it occurs to Buffy that she has never really considered this aspect of his character. 

Never has, and has never really wanted to.

“What the hell do you want, Spike?” she manages, voice coming out vague and scratchy.

Before Spike answers, he glances behind neurotically and shuts the bedroom door.  He fumbles with the knob.  “There aren’t... _things_ in here, are there?” 

Buffy sits up very slowly.  More awake now, she can see that Spike is trembling, and not just his hands.  “Nooo-o, no things.” 

“Oh.”  He lets out a long breath and sort of collapses into sitting on the foot of the bed.  “Oh, that’s probably good.”

“Gerbil-type things, right?”  Without shoes, with his hair all on end, Spike looks softer and she could almost be fond of him if he hadn’t just woken her up.

“No.”  Convulsively, he shakes his head.

“Worse than gerbils?”

“I know they’re not actually there, but...”  Spike, who until now has been staring at the nothing in the farthest corner of the room, suddenly turns that stare on Buffy.  There’s a strange light in his eyes, like he’s just realized something.  He crawls up the bed towards her, all intent and angles – it would be sexy if someone less deranged was doing the crawling.

Lips six inches away from her mouth, looking her right in the eyes, he asks, “You’d tell me?  If they were real?”

“Yes.”  It’s not possible to laugh at him and Buffy doesn’t try.

This reassurance seems to relax him a little, so that when Spike subsides to lean against the headboard next to her, he isn’t shivering any more.  They both sit there, legs stretched out on the bed, staring at the night.  The silence is jumpy.

“It’s worse in the dark.”

“So I gathered,” Buffy half-smiles dryly.  She’s not _not_ annoyed.

“Sorry,” it seems to finally have occurred to Spike that she might not appreciate his presence on her bed in the extremely early morning.  “I didn’t mean... the dark sort of... gibbers at me, like.  Won’t shut up.  ‘S funny, though, when you’ve done as much evil as I have, to be afraid of the dark instead of the other way ‘round. 

“And I know the... _things_ , I know they’re not real and I’m just losing it on account of not sleeping, but they’re still there.  Still... _gibbering_.” Suddenly he giggles.  “Yeah, worse than gerbils. Though,” he adds, still staring into the corner, “not so bad if I don’t look.”

“But you’re looking.”

“Yeah.”

The house settles around them.

“Look, Spike, it’s four in the morning.  I get that you’re having some kind of sanity crisis and you can’t just screw off and go to sleep, but...”

"But you need to. ‘S fine. Just -- can I stay? It's ... okay, when I'm not alone with it. Better when you're here. But if you won’t -- if you want me to go--“

“Stay.  It’s fine.”

“Thank god.”  Spike stretches out flat on top of the covers, dead exhausted and taking up more space than three men his size.

With a huff of exasperation, Buffy wriggles back under the covers as far away from his prone form as possible, turns her back to him, and is asleep in seconds.  She doesn’t see Spike give up on resting and, with a glance to the far, still-empty corner, roll over to face the back of her head.

“Not so bad if I don’t look,” he repeats, and watches the steady pulse ticking at her jugular.

 

***

 

“Spike?” It’s morning, but if he’s finally asleep, Buffy doesn’t want to wake him, so she whispers it without moving to look.  Unfortunately, this means she’s unprepared for the way he starts violently at the sound of his own name, and his backwards leap almost knocks them both of the bed.

“Jesus! Jumpy much?” She smacks ineffectively at his bulk.

Spike rolls off of her and groans face-down into his pillow.  “Much.  You have no idea.”

“Oh, wow,” in the filtered morning light, Buffy can actually get a good look at him. “You look like a corpse.”

“Am one.”

Buffy rolls her eyes and fights off the urge to hit him again.  “Well, at least your keen sense of humour lives on.  When’s the last time you ate?”

“Dunno,” he doesn’t bother to raise his head, “few days maybe.  I’ve been a bit busy going completely barmy.”

“Scheez,” With a head-shake, she swings herself out of bed, “no wonder you’re looking deader than usual.  Come on, I think there’s blood in the freezer, or I can juice you a pot roast or something.  We’ll get breakfast and then I’ll phone Giles.”

As Buffy talks, she turns away and fishes for a bra and t-shirt to replace her pj top. But when he doesn't respond, she glances over and sees that Spike has huddled himself completely under the sheets. _Right, vampire, probably not exactly a morning person._

“All the blinds are shut; get up.”  With a poke to his general kidney region, she heads for the hallway, tugging her UC sweatshirt on as she goes.

He pauses just long enough that she turns back to look at him on her way out the door.

Spike, looking completely ridiculous wrapped Lawrence of Arabia-style in her mother’s flowery sheets, gives her the rough sketch of a grin. “Oh, Slayer,” He belly-chuckles, “surely you know by now that a vamp’s _always_ up.”

She crosses her arms.  “See, how come you can be all gross this morning, but last night while I’m trying to sleep it’s all ‘ooh, Buffy, the dark is _gibbering_ , Buffy’? That’s not even a real verb.”

“Is so.  And...” Spike hesitates, “the things are still there, just can’t get at me ‘cause it’s day.  ‘Sides, you’re here.”  For a second he looks almost bashful.  “It helps a bit.”

Okay, and, glossing right over whatever issues that implies, “You do know that’s crazytalk, right?”

“Yeah.  But I can’t... I’m so fucking _tired_ , Slayer, and they’re _there_ , and I don’t even know where the hell this conversation started anymore.  Have you called the Watcher already?”

“... No.  You knew that.”

“Fuck.  I don’t know anything right now.  I couldn’t tell you the day of the week if you paid me; I don’t even know how I got here last night.  It _was_ just last night, right?”

“Just last night,” Buffy confirms.  More and more, she finds herself talking to Spike as if he were a three-year-old with the flu.  Which, she supposes, isn’t that far off from how he’s probably feeling, discounting a century or so, a certain lack of soul, and possibly some serious magic of the not-so-pure kind.  “Let’s go get you some blood.  Can you walk?”

Spike staggers like a drunkard, but proves he can walk at least far enough to slump himself over the kitchen island.  His eyes follow Buffy vacantly as she rummages around in the freezer for a package of blood and a frozen waffle.  When she clunks the mug down in front of him he jumps a little, and again when the toaster goes off.

The phone rings; Buffy winces as he drops the not totally empty mug. 

“Giles!  Just the man I wanted! What? No, Mom’s not back -- that’s just Spike breaking all the stuff in my kitchen by being a neurotic freak.”  She waves a hand at the vamp in question not to pick up the china bits, she’ll get them later.  “Uh-huh, he’s here.  Nope.  No, actually we -- well, _he_ \-- kinda needs your help.  Yeah.  Um, now, if you can.  It’s better if you come here.  Yup.  Yeah, sun problems.  Thanks Giles! You’re the best!”

“Watcher’s coming over, then?” For a second, Buffy doesn’t quite process the question because she’s too busy wondering why the hell Spike seems to be taking off his shirt in her kitchen.  Then she realizes it’s completely spattered with spilled blood.

 

When Giles arrives with the standard research crew, he is clearly determined to treat the whole situation like just another day in the Watcher’s office.  Although, the funny looks he keeps shooting at Buffy over the rims of his glasses suggest that a seven-part lecture on the irresponsibility of letting a vampire into her living room may feature in Buffy’s near future.  It’s a good thing Giles doesn’t know exactly where Spike spent the night or she’d be in for a ten-parter, for sure.

Happily, Giles is willing to hold the entire lecture at least until the issue at hand is dealt with.  Without even mentioning Spike’s lack of shirt, he cuts straight to the chase.

“Perhaps we should get to the root of the problem.  When did this start?  Was anything, er, unusual going on at the time?”  It’s such an obvious question that Buffy can’t believe she hadn’t thought to ask it before.

“Not particularly.”

_Uh-huh_ , Giles’ raised eyebrow says. _Really._

“Well, I broke up with Harm, but that’s less unusual and more a case of restorin’ the cosmic balance.”  Xander, previously stonily silent, actually lets out a laugh at this before realizing what’s going on and turning it into an inelegant cough-snort-thing.

“That’s not very nice!” Willow glares at the both of them, “How would you feel?”

“If Harmony actually broke up with me of her own accord?  Bloody ecstatic,” Spike scoffs, then reconsiders.  “Actually, given present circumstances, I’d probably still be lying here feeling like absolute shite and wishing I was dead, but that’s nothing to do with her.”

Giles looks thoughtful.

“Look,” Spike opens his eyes and squints against the nonexistent glare of the room, “do you lot actually need me around for the part of the episode where you toss around idiotic solutions for thirty minutes before you finally decide to get your asses in gear and fix the bloody issue?  Only, your nattering gives me a headache at the best of times...” and although he’s putting up a good enough facade that the others probably don’t realize it, Buffy’s seen for herself that he’s seriously in pain.

“Not at all.” Giles is no doubt offended by the mere suggestion of his ever ‘nattering’.  “In fact, I’m sure we’ll get on better without your particular sort of... assistance.”

Spike doesn’t bother to respond, he just stumbles out of the room.  A second later, he stumbles back.  “Buffy?”  There’s a worried crinkle between his eyes.

She gets it right away.  “They’re still not real, Spike.”

“Thanks.”  He disappears again.

 

Once Spike is safely upstairs, Buffy explains about the hallucinations -- she leaves out, however, the part about his early morning visit to her mom’s room.  That’s none of Giles’ business and anyway, Xander would flip out.  Not to mention Spike, if he found out that she’s let slip about his weakness.  Luckily, Giles doesn’t seem interested in the specific details of Spike’s paranoia.

Instead he wants to know whether Spike seems otherwise normal, whether he has eaten -- or been feeding -- and if he “exhibits normal co-ordination and stamina”.

Buffy goggles.  “Uh, stamina? Because... we _really_ don’t have that kind of relationship.  Any relationship.  There’s no, um, relationship-ness of any kind.”

What follows is a silence that lasts about ten seconds too long.

“Er, quite. I rather meant to enquire about his physical strength.  Whether or not he seems unusually weak or clumsy, which could indicate a malicious spell of some kind.”

“Thanks for clearing that up, though, Buff.”  Xander eyes her like she’s week-old bread -- probably safe, if you avoid the blue fuzzy bits.

She gets rid of them all as quickly as possible. 

Then she spends a very long time just standing behind the closed door.

 

“How’s it going?”  Her not-exactly-invited houseguest is splayed face-down on the comforter of Joyce’s bed, looking greyish, so the answer is fairly self-evident.  There's no response, though; either he didn’t hear or he’s chosen to ignore her.  Maybe he thinks she’s another figment.

On impulse, as if he were a small child or a sick dog, Buffy crosses over to sit at the edge of the bed and lays one pink-manicured hand on the small of his back.  He hasn’t found a replacement shirt yet, or more likely he’s forgotten that he isn’t wearing one.

“Buffy?” Every muscle bunches; he sounds groggy, but wary.

“Hi.  Are you okay?”

“Hm.”  Her identity confirmed, Spike relaxes utterly.  “Warm hands.”

“Yeah, being alive ‘ll do that to ya.”  As she talks she pets in absent patterns; he just looks so miserable and helpless, she forgets who she has under her fingertips.  Well, that and Spike has a really fantastic back, now that she gets a look at it, all smooth and angle-y.  Good muscle tone.

“Giles thinks it’s probably a curse -- your thing, I mean, not my hands -- otherwise he figures you’d be less crazy and more... catatonic.  Anyways, he’s got the other guys on research duty.  I’m just supposed to keep you from dusting yourself accidentally or going on a psycho rampage or whatever.”

Spike huffs, petulant, and squirms under her fingers.

“Hey, forgive me for not being thrilled that I’ll be spending my weekend babysitting a half-crazed vampire who hogs the bed and keeps me up all night ‘cause he’s scared of the dark.  I was planning on going out.”

“Your watcher reckons it’s gonna take all weekend to fix this?”

“They need to figure out exactly what the curse is to be able to break it, I think.  Actually, I’m surprised they’re helping at all; you’re not normally their favourite guy.”

“That’s because you’re an idiot,” he says flatly, a little harshly, and shakes free of her contact. 

“I -- What?”

“They’re doing it just ‘cos you asked it of them, just like every sodding other person you’ve ever met.  ‘Cos they bleedin’ well love you.  And if you don’t know that by now... They don’t give a fuck about me one way or the other -- well, ‘cept for Harris, that one might actually hate me.  But they love _you_ , Summers, and if you weren’t so bloody stupid, you’d see that they’d do anything for you.  Even, it turns out, help me.”

_What set him off?_   She blinks at his rigid form, a little shocked.  It seems Spike has no idea either.

“Sorry,” he sighs.  “Not that I don’t mean every word, but...” he lifts his forehead from the pillow to smack it back down again in frustration.  “God, Slayer, ‘m so tired I _ache_.”

“Let me try something.”  Very cautiously, she replaces both hands somewhere near the middle of his spine and slides them upwards.  Just a little pressure with the heels of her hands as she runs them up either side of Spike’s backbone, and then she’s circling with her thumbs right at the base of his neck, right where the muscles are tightest.

 

He positively _ripples_ under her touch; if he’d been standing he would have fallen back into her hands.

“Ohhhh.  _Fuck_.  Tha’s bloody brilliant, that is.”

“Yeah?”  Buffy climbs onto the bed for better leverage and smiles, a little quirk at the corner of her mouth that she only allows because she knows he can’t see it.  “Wills and I took one of those weekend classes one time, but it’s been a while.  Back in high school when Snyder was on some sort of career education kick -- it was either massage therapy or firefighting.”

“Can see why people’d pay for this, though.  Mngh.”  Buffy works her way up to the base of his skull now, fingers in Spike’s hairline, and lingers.  He sinks even deeper into the pillows, boneless and absolutely loving it -- it’s a total mystery how he’s making his words understood through the bedding.  “Mmm- _mm_ ngh.”

When he uses words.

This is sort of fun, Buffy decides.  This is way better than listening to him ramble about things that go ‘augh’ in the night, and she has him more completely at her mercy than if she held a sharpened two-by-four to his chest.  Plus, he makes such pretty noises when she finds the _really_ good spots. 

"Y'know," Spike slurs, "‘s a real pity I've never tried this when I was in a not-deathly-ill enough state to, mmmm, enjoy it properly. Maybe with oil an’ some candles... you in one of those skimpy little masseuse robe things...”

“What, no one’s ever given you a massage before?”  Surprising, considering what Buffy has always assumed about the encyclopedic length of his sexual history.  She lets the innuendo slide altogether on account of its -- for Spike -- mildness and his deathly ill state.

This is, by the way, _so_ not about sex. 

It’s about keeping Spike distracted and therefore not freaking out and it’s about trying to get him to look less like a sick hound dog and more like the vamp Buffy loves to hate so that this whole bizarre situation can go away.

After a second or two he processes her question and seems equally surprised that Buffy has asked it.  “’Course not, who would’ve done this?” He sounds shocked, close to laughing. “For William the Bloody?”

There’s nothing Buffy Summers can think of to say to that.  So she doesn’t, just inches down the broad planes of his back -- his really, very nice back -- working through the knots with short, hard pressure and then long, deep strokes, straddling his legs to get a better angle.  Taking time to do a really good job because, honestly, she suspects that she’s enjoying it as much as he is.  The rhythm is steady and soothing and maybe it’s just the Slayer in her, but she’s glad to feel useful.  Judging by the contented limpness that is Spike, she’s helping with the aching if nothing else.

At almost the base of his vertebrae, she finds a particularly fierce tangle and he makes this _sound_ , halfway between a choking gasp and a moan, that sends an answering jolt of pleasure straight up Buffy’s spine.  And, while she’s admitting things, straight down it.

This is completely about sex.  And it’s about Spike, and sex _with_ Spike, and how much she wants him, _right now_ , needy and gorgeous and vulnerable and spread out beneath her and _hurting_.  Because Buffy can see that he’s in real agony; not just aching with exhaustion, but also with the weakness he’s let her see only because he had to show it to _someone_.  It’s something she’s fairly sure he will resent her for later.

She’s even surer that later, when he reverts back to being a complete asshole, she’ll resent Spike for letting her see him this way, as well.  Although that won’t manage to stop her from wanting him; he’s always been hot and, damn him, this is worse.

 But it will stop her from putting her hands on him the way she is now, in kindness, ever again.

The best future she can hope for, really, is that mutual resentment will distil into blind, destructive lust.  Maybe they’ll tear each other to shreds, but at least they’ll both get off first.

Which is more than she can say about their present situation.  Spike might be relaxed into roughly the state of instant vanilla pudding, but he’s certainly in no condition to take any real satisfaction from anything.  As for Buffy, she’s now run out of back that can legitimately be massaged.  And although she’d really like to move on to other areas...  No, nobody will be getting off today.

Regretfully, with one last tracery down his spine that leaves him quivering electrically beneath her touch, Buffy removes herself from the bed.  Spike grumbles an unintelligible complaint and exerts himself to fix one baleful eye in her direction. 

At the sheer indignation on his face, Buffy has to choke back her laughter.

Nope, she can’t get fond of him, because it isn’t Spike she’s fond of.  She likes the guy flopped on the bed right now, sort of, in a way that’s probably more related to the saviour complex that Spike always says she has but which she has always vehemently denied having, than any actual liking.  This guy isn’t Spike, because Spike is a jerk and because Spike couldn’t sit still for more than four seconds in a row if his life depended on it.  This guy _looks_ like Spike -- well, like Spike having a really bad day -- but he hasn’t budged in hours and he resolutely won’t look at the corners of the room.

“I’m gonna go order a pizza.  D’you want some?  Or I had Giles bring over some more blood, if you want that?”

The struggle to use his faculties is evident, but he triumphs.  “Uh. Blood’s good.”

With a little grin that she doesn’t want to analyze, Buffy saunters down the stairs.

 

Sometime quite a bit later, Willow calls from Giles’ house to say that they’ve figured out how to break the curse.

“Oh, thank god!”  Buffy is thrilled.  “I thought I was going to have to try and sleep with him taking up the whole bed again.” 

“Well, it’s not... wait, what? Sleep? With _Spike_? In your _bed_?”

“Ye-- No! Not -- not like that.  In my mom’s bed.”  This, Buffy realizes, doesn’t sound much better. _Pause. Collect._   “He’s afraid of the dark, Willow.  I pretty much had to.”

“You had to _sleep with Spike_?”  Willow’s already planning the intervention; Buffy can tell. 

“I already told you, not that kind of sleep!  He just sorta... turned up in the middle of the night and he was a total mess so I let him stay.  Honestly, what do you think I am, some kind of vamp-laying hobag?”

“Well, luv, there’s certainly a precedent.” Buffy jumps violently, only slayer reflexes saving the handset from flying to its death.  That voice is far too gravelly to belong to Willow, and it doesn’t come from over the phone.

“Spike!”  She yelps, lamely. “I thought you were... not in my kitchen.”

“Got lonely.”  He installs himself on a stool.  “Those Red’s shrill tones I could hear from halfway up the stairs?”

“Oh!” She’d practically forgotten the phone, “Yep.  She says that they figured out how to fix you already.  Oh, wait,” the handset chatters for a second, “she wants to talk to you.  For some reason.”  With a puzzled shrug, Buffy hands the phone over.  Now she can only hear half the conversation.

“’Lo, Red.  I hear you’ve good news for me?  Oh.  Tomorrow, right,” his face falls a little.  Buffy notices that he’s keeping his balance on the stool by gripping the counter and that his knuckles are turning white with the effort.  “No, no, ‘s fine.  Tomorrow it is.”

There’s a longish pause while Buffy gets more and more curious, and then Spike laughs out loud.  “What, Harm?  No soddin’ way!  That takes balls, that does.  Bit of a relief, though; here I was, thinkin’ that some nasty I’d forgotten about had a vendetta against me.  Fantastic,” shaking his head, he sounds more cheerful than Buffy’s heard him since he first stumbled through her door.  “No, nothin’ to worry about there; she’ll give up right off the bat as soon as this doesn’t work.  Listen, ‘s been lovely, but I can see the Slayer outta the corner of my eye and she’s starting to twitch.  I’d best go tell her what’s up.”

Buffy is indeed twitching -- in fact, she’s practically gritting her teeth with the effort of not marching across the kitchen, seizing the telephone, and demanding to know what, exactly, the big joke is.  As soon as he hangs up, she accosts Spike.

“Why are you so nice to her? You’re _never_ that nice to me!  And just what the hell’s so damn funny that Willow can’t say it to my face, anyway?”

“Easy, sweets.  ‘S a pity I’m so sleep deprived I probably won’t remember the look on your face right now... bloody priceless.  Are we jealous, then?”  The grin on his tired face would make an excellent target for punching in.  “No need.  Red’s a decent sort, is all.”

“Implying that I’m not?”

“Implying that you’re sure as hell never nice to _me_ , either.  Besides, you’re more fun.  You get feisty; Red just goes all googly-eyed an’ sad if I take the piss.

“Anyway,” he hurries on before she actually does punch him, “’parently Harm got pissy after I kicked her out on her ass, and hired some internet shaman outta Santa Fe to put the voodoo on me.  Red just traced the order and as soon as one or two ingredients come in, she’ll patch me up.  Says she just had the stuff FedExed from the same guy, so it ought to do the trick; should be here tomorrow morning.  Even put out for rush shipping for me... Hey, how ‘bout that, Slayer?  Maybe your friends don’t hate me as much as you think.”

“Or _maybe_ my friends just know how much I must be suffering, stuck with you moping around my house.  So, one more night?”

“Yeah.  You don’t mind if I wait it out here?”

“Uh,” she’s surprised that he’s bothered to ask instead of just infuriatingly assuming.  It takes a lot of the comforting irritation out of the equation.  Dammit.  “Sure, yeah.  Mom’s not due back ‘til Thursday, so it doesn’t matter.  But you seem lots better...”

Spike laughs again, but this time it isn’t particularly cheerful.  “Oh, no.  Why d’you think ‘m down here with you?  ‘S not because all your yammering is helping with my headache, I’ll tell you that much.

“The chipper tone’s just an act for Red -- you don’t live as long as I have without learning to hide most weakness from the other players.  Plus, y’know, the fact that it’s Harmony doing this is pretty damn funny.”

Which only makes Buffy wonder: why doesn’t he bother acting with her?  Probably he just doesn’t care one way or the other whether she knows how badly off he is -- after all, Buffy’s not a ‘decent sort’.

For a while, Buffy occupies herself with puttering around the kitchen. This doesn't offer long-term amusement for her on a Saturday night, however, and eventually she can't stand the inactivity. Unfortunately, she also can’t ditch Spike here and go do something fun, because he’s legally insane and that would just be asking for trouble -- although right now he’s sitting quietly enough and staring at the clock.

“Wanna watch a movie or something?  I think we’ve got a couple with blood and gore?”

“Not particularly.  ‘Ve got a bad enough migraine already without sitting through whatever swill you like well enough to own.  Besides, too many flashing lights; might give me epilepsy or something.”

The stove clock changes rivetingly from 7:52 to 7:53.  Buffy sits on the stool next to his.  Her nails tap against the counter.  Somewhere, someone is probably having a better time than this.

“Slayer?” Spike is looking at Buffy quizzically, with all that’s left of his fraying concentration.

There’s enough of Spike’s concentration apparently left unfrayed that Buffy, who has almost managed to forget that she wants to take horrific advantage of his weakened state to jump this person who has Spike’s fantastic bone structure but is much less annoying, gets tingly.

“Why’re you being so nice to me?”

“Huh?” Oh, whoops, she was totally zoned.

“Why haven’t you sent me packing?  Why’re you sitting here with me when I need it, ‘stead of buggering off to go watch some girly flick or something?”

“Oh.” _Oh!_ “Just, um, Slayerly instinct.  You know.  It’s pretty much part of the job description; slay some vampires, save the planet, fix people who get hexed by bad exes.”

“Hm.”

“Yep.”

“So... in this particular scenario, I get to count as ‘people’?”

 

By two-thirty Sunday morning, Buffy is seriously starting to wonder.  Although Spike hasn’t said anything since she climbed into bed -- her mom’s bed, _no ickiness here, nossir_ \-- three hours ago and announced that she was going to sleep, he’s sitting stiffly upright and gives a nervous little jolt every few minutes.  It’s not exactly conducive to restful slumber time for Slayers.  Finally, it’s enough.

“Will you just lie down and stay still, already?  You’re like a friggin’... I don’t even know! Nothing else is as twitchy as you are!”

Spike looks at her in shock, like he’s never even considered that perhaps she doesn’t want to be jerked to attention every single time she nearly dozes off, but then he’s contrite. 

“Sorry ‘bout that.” He flops down immediately and doesn’t twitch any more, his arms crossed across his chest.  Either as a feeble sort of protection or because he has to physically hold himself still; it’s tough to call.

Feeling a little bad for snapping at him, it takes Buffy a while to nod off even now that he’s motionless.  Besides, he’s still stiff as a board and it’s making her twitchy, too.  She even considers, briefly, the crazy idea of putting her arms around him in comfort just to see if it’ll loosen him up.

 

A sound jerks Buffy back to consciousness not nearly long enough later, when the room is still completely dark. Something’s definitely weird and it takes a few groggy seconds before she realizes that the weirdness is entirely Spike. 

He must have swung himself into his tense, hunched posture on the edge of the bed so stealthily that it didn’t disturb her, but now he is growling into the dark.  Not an enraged vampiric snarl but a slow, soft, watchdog-low growl; if Spike had hackles, they would be bristling.  And he is talking, or maybe muttering, to himself.

“ _Stay the fuck away._ ”  No, not to himself; Spike is talking to the serene darkness, with as much menace as a hundred years of vampirism can lend him.  Three years of acquaintance let Buffy see that he’s scared shitless. 

He is also trying to be very, very quiet, his voice as soft and low as his growl.

“Now listen here.  This lady’s sleeping and I know full well that you’re only figments, so you’d best just back down ‘cos I’ll be damned if you touch her s’long as I’m still standing.  Keep away from me, ghosties, because you _don’t_ wanna piss me off.”

Well. That's... certainly interesting. He's trying so hard not to wake her and it's so nearly sweet, in a completely deranged way, that she doesn't have the heart to let him know she's already wide awake. And then there's the fact that Buffy really rather enjoys having a shirtless Spike crouched on her bed, ready to defend her sleeping self to the death. Strange that whatever’s driving him crazy also has him so fiercely protective -- she’d better take full ogling advantage now, ‘cause it’ll never happen again.

Before Buffy can decide what to do, Spike’s eyes widen in terror and he lets out a feral, cornered snarl.  It’s an animal sound, like no noise she’s ever heard before, and suddenly she knows that Spike is about to really go off the deep end.

_Oh, Shit_.

“Hey, Spike,” She tries to get the vampire’s attention. “Spike!”

He hears her and spares her one undisguised, frightened glance.  “Stay back, Slayer.  I won’t let ‘em... _No_ , I said, you’ll _stay the hell away from the girl_!”

“Spike, stop it!”  Catching him by the shoulders before he can jump off the bed and wreak god knows what damage on her mother’s furniture, Buffy spins him around to face her.  Hard.

Spike struggles like a wild thing, desperate to face the threat, but the Slayer’s stronger and he’s exhausted.  She lets him thrash it out until he’s still and panting, breathing like it hurts him to draw air.  When she is quite sure of his submission, Buffy runs her hand up to cup his face and force him to look her in the eyes.  “Stop it, Spike.”

But it’s clear that Spike doesn’t understand.  His eyes remain wild and horror-struck; Buffy can’t even be sure that he’s really seeing her.

Breathing a little hard from the struggle herself, she is suddenly afraid that she won’t be able to rip him back from whatever has him in its clutches.  They’ll break the spell tomorrow and he’ll still be trapped in there with his imaginary horrors. 

But then, if anyone has experience with saving people from horrors of every kind, it’s Buffy. 

Carefully, slowly, so that Spike doesn’t startle, Buffy shifts her hands until she’s smoothing his uncontrolled curls back from his brow.  Gentling him.  Crooning to the wild animal inside him.

“Shh. Okay. It’s okay, Spike; there’s nothing there. It’s just the dark; it’s all right.  Come on...” She sees the shadows recede a bit, like maybe he’ll believe her.

“Slayer?” Spike croaks, looking spooked.

“Yeah, just me.”  Buffy gives him a crooked little smile and doesn’t change the rhythm of her petting.  “It’s only me.”

“No.  No, there were...”

“Just shadows, Spike.” 

Reaching up, he stills one of her hands with his own as if to test her reality for himself.

“Sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Oh.  Oh, fuck.”  Spike gives in, or maybe he can’t help it, and sags forward into Buffy.  It’s almost shocking, how easily she can take his weight.  And it seems like they’ve had this conversation way too many times over the past two nights, but every time they repeat it, she’s a little surprised by how absolutely he seems to trust her.  He takes her word, every single time.

“Come on,” Buffy says again, half-supporting him the two steps to the bed, “I’ll call Giles in the morning and he’ll fix all this.”

“He bloody well better,” is all Spike has to say.

 

This time when they lie down, Buffy does put her arms around him and discovers that it’s as much for her own comfort as for his.  It’s not an entirely unpleasant sensation, this tactile knowledge that they’ll both be all right come morning.  She pulls him, still shivering a little, into the crook of her neck; he must still be far gone because he doesn’t even react.

As her breathing slows and evens out, Buffy feels him begin to match her rhythm, coming down.

“Buffy?”

“Hmm?” She’s almost asleep when he speaks to her.

“’M sorry I woke you.  I won’t do it again.”  And he slips his own bare arm around her back.

“I know.  It’s all right; it’ll be light in a few hours and Giles will have the stuff to do the counterspell.  You only have to hold out ‘til then, ‘kay?”

He squeezes her a little closer, moves a little more into her neck.  Whispers, “Okay.”

Buffy curls her fingers into his hair and falls asleep instantly.

 

***

 

When she wakes up again, it’s the telephone and not Spike that wakes her.  Instinctively trying to reach for the source of the noise, she realizes that there’s quite a lot of vampire in her way because Spike hasn’t budged at all.  For, she squints at the alarm clock, like, five hours.  Nice of him.  It’s almost ten thirty; that must be Giles on the phone.

As she reaches around him to the receiver, she gives Spike a half-grateful, half-sheepish grin.  “Thanks for just letting me sleep like that; I guess I needed it.  Hey, Giles.”

It’s Xander, actually, but the message is the same.  Spike only grumbles, something unflattering, probably, when she tells him that it’s going to take another few hours while Willow brews things up.  Still, nothing is going to get rid of Buffy’s bizarre good mood.  Untangling their legs -- pity, that, ‘cause it turns out that when he isn’t being actively crazy, CrazySpike is a fantastic cuddler, and who’d have known? -- Buffy heads for the shower.

“Try not to do anything nuts while I’m busy.”

“Right,” the bed’s occupant keeps his eyes firmly shut, “’m on it.”

 

Taking her warning seriously, he still hasn’t really moved when Giles and Willow arrive, considerably more than just a few hours later.  Buffy, who has basically been twiddling her thumbs since bringing Spike some blood after lunch, comes practically leaping down the stairs at the first knock.

“Hey guys! Thank god you finally showed; I’m going wacky just sitting around, and Spike isn’t exactly Mr. Conversation right now.  Please tell me that you have it?”

“Yep!”  Willow brandishes her thermos perkily.  Buffy blinks.

“You... um, you do realize that he’s totally going to bitch about drinking anything that comes in a pink, flower-covered jug, right?”

“Yeah, it’s okay.  I’ll need to do some incantations and stuff before he drinks it, so we can pour it into a mug or something for that.  Anyway, this was all I had.”  The redhead frowns at the lurid object.  “So where is he?”

“Upstairs in mom’s bed, I hope.” Buffy ignores Giles’ slightly incredulous look at that.  “Hey, why didn’t Xander show?”

“Oh, uh,”

“We didn’t need him for the incantation and he declared that he had no wish to be involved with, and I quote, ‘anything to do with that waste of dust, unless there’s a sharp stick and a broom involved,’” Giles says, just as Spike comes limping downstairs.  “Er, hello, Spike.”

“Right charitable of the rest of you to show up, then, isn’t it.  ‘Lo, Rupes.”  He plunks onto the living room couch.  “Let’s do this, shall we?  Pass us the girly jug, Red.”

“Actually,” Willow says timidly, “it’s better if we do this upstairs if that’s where you’re, um, staying.  You’ll probably pass out as soon as you drink it.”

“Best news I’ve heard all week.”  Detaching himself from the couch with a grimace, Spike slouches back up the stairs and everyone else trails after.  He re-establishes himself cross-legged on Joyce’s bedspread.  “So how’s this work?”

“Well, it’s pretty simple, really,” Willow replies, whipping out a heavy-looking book and lighting candles from her backpack as she talks.  “Giles and I just need to say a couple incantations over the, uh, thermos,” she waves it absently in one hand, “And then you drink it as quickly as possible.  Pretty much.” 

Feeling a little left out of all the candle-arranging, Buffy perches on the corner of the bed.  “You don’t need me for anything?  I could help... incant.”

Both Willow and Giles just look at her.

“Okay, no, that would be a bad idea.  But I could hold some incense or something, right?”

“Just stay put an’ let the witch to her job, Slayer,” Spike is understandably snappish.  “I don’t need you bungling this up.”

“Fine, fine, I just wanted to help.”

“Right.  Ta, I’m sure.  Red, you about ready with that?”

“Just... about...” squinting, Willow nudges one candle a little to the left.  “Yep.  Let’s go.”  The flowery thermos gets set down in the centre of the circle, Giles hefts the book and Willow slides over so she can see to read over his shoulder, and for something that took the whole day to get ready, it doesn’t take very long at all.

Willow unscrews the pink top of the thermos and passes it across the bed with a flourish.  Wrinkling his nose, Spike gives the liquid inside a dubious inspection.  “Grapefruit juice and vinegar?”

“Not _just_ grapefruit juice,” Willow defends.  “That took me hours to brew this morning.  Anyways, grapefruits have lots of really good properties.”

“Yeah,” Buffy pipes, “like, they’re supposed to have tons of vitamin C!”

Shooting Buffy a ‘you’re-not-really-helping-here’ glare, Willow says, “Just drink it; it’ll work.  I hope.”

With a final skeptical stare at the gloopy contents of the thermos, Spike chugs it all back. 

Absolutely nothing happens.

“Is it working?” Willow nudges anxiously.

“No, I think it’s... _Oh_.”  Spike frowns slightly, as if he’s just encountered a difficult clue whilst doing the crossword, and then his eyes roll all the way back to the whites.

He folds like he’s been shot through the skull.

 

“Um,” Buffy says after a second, “is he... okay?”

“Yup,” sounding completely cheerful, Willow walks over and inspects the body.  She pokes his chest with her pinkie finger, testing.  “That’s sorta supposed to happen when that much sleep debt catches up with you all at once.  He’s a vampire, so I don’t know how long it’ll take him to wake up, but with a regular person I’d say maybe... three days?”

Giles nods, “At the least; he’s been sleep deprived for more than a week.  When he wakes you’d better have blood on hand -- I should think he’ll be hungry.”  It’s the first thing he’s said since explaining Xander’s absence, and he sounds stiff and not at all like he’s pleased about the idea of the vampire ever waking up again.

Shooing Willow and Giles back down the stairs, Buffy wishes, with the acute longing of someone who hasn’t left the house all weekend, that she could go out and get some ice cream. 

Nothing is stopping her, much, except that for some reason she feels like she should be around when Spike wakes up.  Not that she’s worried about him, exactly, she just needs to be sure that he’s okay because... oh yeah.  Because she wants him, badly.  She almost forgot that she’d already admitted it to herself; there’s no need to invent a good excuse for her behaviour if she’s already accepted the actual, really dumb reason.

So, not worried, then, just... in lust.

Of course, she realizes that the guy she actually _likes_ is CrazySpike, all helpless and sort of sweet and maybe a little cuddly, and as soon as Spike wakes up it’ll be the real, debatably-sane Spike and he’ll be out of here, yelling insults as he slams the door.  Maybe she should just jump him now, while he’s still unconscious.

Buffy gives this plan exactly six seconds more consideration than it merits, then trudges to the kitchen to finish the leftover pizza.  Meat Lover’s, because that’s what Spike said was his favourite. 

She scrapes some of the beef bits off before she microwaves it.

 

On her way to bed, showered, pyjama-ed, and definitely ready to relish the return to an uninterrupted sleep schedule, Buffy makes a dangerous decision: she cracks her mother’s bedroom door open and looks in on Spike.  To make sure he isn’t deader, of course, and not for any reasons of jumping.  Though to be honest, he does look really, really dead; what if she’s some kind of freaky necrophiliac?  Should she have tucked him in, instead of just leaving him lying there all corpse-like? 

It seems like the decent thing to do.

Seems like it right up until something, either her presence or more likely the weight of her hands spreading the comforter out over top of him, causes him to crack one eye open.

 Spike isn’t awake, but he’s not quite a hundred percent asleep anymore.  After a second’s muzzy contemplation, he scoots over and draws the covers back.  Assuming without a second thought, probably without any thought at all, that she’ll join him there.  Not like he’s seeking her comfort, either, more like his unconscious has proprietorially decided that the most obvious place for her is beside him.  Ordinarily, an assumption like this would piss Buffy off. 

If he’d spoken, said anything smug or even anything at all, she probably would have yelled at him.

Instead, Buffy finds herself sliding under the comforter next to him and letting him curve himself, kitchen-utensil-style, around her back.  He isn’t warm, but Spike is solid against her and pleasantly immobile.  Stable and unthreatening and... Oh, wait, no.  He’s a vampire; it doesn’t get much less stable.  But Buffy puts it from her mind and closes her eyes as he gives a suspiciously satisfied little snuffle-sigh into her hair and settles again.

_Oh well_.  Lately, that’s sort of Buffy’s motto.

 

***

 

Then the morning arrives, and with it the idea that maybe she should consider getting a better motto.

Buffy starts, slowly, to wake up -- and finishes the process very quickly indeed.  Spike, who is _supposed_ to be soundly asleep for the next three days, is lying next to her, very much awake.  And very much staring at her.  In her mother’s bed.  It feels as if she’s accidentally stood too close to something charged and now all her hair is on end. 

When he smiles, leisurely, Buffy forgets all about supernatural strength and warrior discipline and rigorous combat training.  She probably forgets her own name.

 That unnatural smile does not belong on any man, or even any vampire.

It is the kind of smile that short-circuits something fundamental in her brain, bypassing _Slayer_ entirely and heading straight for _terrified_ until the only thing on her mind is how best to run the hell away.  It belongs to something animal, something utterly feral.  And it’s so self-assured that the tiny corner of her that isn’t quaking wants to smack Spike for presuming... whatever he’s just presumed.

Instead of doing either, instead of doing anything at all, she freezes.   

Lazily, like he’s been waiting for hours and still doesn’t quite see the rush, Spike reaches out and traces one index finger along her collarbone, down the satin of her camisole, to circle around her navel with exquisite, predatory delicacy.  Oh god, oh _why_ doesn’t she sleep in flannel or something?  He never breaks eye contact, which means he must see the way she inhales, _hard_ , and bites her lip.  Oh, god.

“What,” Buffy can’t quite get it out evenly, “the _hell_ are you doing?”

Spike doesn’t stop doing it.  The smile stretches into a full-on grin of evil when she doesn’t -- can’t -- pull away.  “Returning a favour, luv.”

“W- _what_?”

“Well,” He shifts a dangerous half-inch closer.  “Unless I was _extremely_ delirious at the time, I think I owe you a massage.  So.”  The single finger strays a little lower, making Buffy jump and then shiver.

It isn’t her fault when that single touch pulls back just a bit, even as he moves his body closer still -- _too close, way too close; has she ever been this close to_ anyone _before and not been touching?_ \-- and she arches into him, just a bit, to regain contact.  Not smiling any more but deadly intent, Spike spreads the pads of his fingers snow-soft against her belly.  Under her top.

As if he’s unsure and testing to see if she’ll flinch, except that his eyes are still locked with Buffy’s and still so certain.  She breathes out, shaking but totally still.

Both of them know: she isn’t going to flinch. 

And Spike’s eyes aren’t on hers anymore because he’s staring at her lips with a kind of heavy-lidded hunger that she thinks he has to give in to soon.  Kiss her, why doesn’t he kiss her?  His eyelashes, the angles of them when he glances downward, catch at her unexpectedly, so that Buffy forgets to breathe back in again.  Forgets that this whole situation makes no sense.

But, senselessly, Buffy has wanted forever to touch Spike just _there_ , at the hollow of his throat where her thumb strays now.  Because some visceral instinct tells her how wholly he’ll react. 

His pretty, pretty boy-lashes flutter shut for only a second and then he snaps her back into his razor focus. 

_So maybe there_ was _a test_ , she nearly has time to think, right before _impossibly close_ becomes _touching everywhere_ and Spike is flush against her, on top of her, pressing into her, with both hands somehow tangled in her hair.

“Thank you.”

Long before she can ask, _for what?,_ she has to give up because his mouth is in the way and, honestly, she doesn’t give a trucker’s damn.

Spike is straddling her thighs, pinning her with his full, hard weight like he’s afraid she’ll try to escape, and it’s got her electrified.  He’s kissing her now, but just barely.  Just a needy brushing of lower lips, a flick of tongue, that gets her sliding her hand around to the back of his neck in desperation to drag him down to where she is.  To _make_ him show her the hunger he’s promising.

And, oh, his lips are so soft, but she doesn’t want this soft when she’s starving.

Buffy only has time to clutch at his bare shoulders, both hands now, and remember with a jolt that Spike isn’t wearing a shirt, when suddenly he’s _there_. 

This isn’t about exploration or even lust as much as it is about Spike demanding a response, ripping it from her with violence even as his careful hands strip her clothes so gently that she almost doesn’t notice.  Fingers infinitely light, he teases her top up her sides and over her breasts.  His mouth, Buffy is sure, will leave bruises as it follows after.  She lets him take it, lets him have both her reaction and her nudity.  Claws against him until she can get her bare legs around his jean-clad hips and feel exactly how hard he is, the denim intimate and rough against her open sex.   What the hell, it’s not as if she doesn’t want him.

He bites at her lip in a way that might be mistaken for playful if didn’t hurt so much.

Actually, truth is, Buffy wants him so badly that it makes her hate him a little bit, and not even for being a vampire.  No, she hates him purely, just for being the person that he is. 

It’s completely impossible that someone should make her this desperate, and it’s all Spike’s fault.  The catch of fabric against her skin when Spike grinds down again, far too harsh, makes her yank back from him with a half-ecstatic gasp.  The air tastes of electric charge and _him_.  She’s probably ripping out chunks of his hair, she knows he’s pulling hers, but she can’t keep away from his lips for long enough to regain her breath. 

Not that it matters, right now, but she really does hate Spike and this is why.

Not so much when he’s helpless, she’s discovered that she almost likes Spike then, but at other times. 

Like now, when she hates him as she practically tears the buttons off his jeans trying to get at him.  Like she hated him when he kidnapped her friends, and when he planned to kill her, and once when he helped her save the world. 

So when his fly finally defeats her and she looks up into his knowing, demanding eyes only to see affection there as well and not for the first time, it's all tangled up with the hate and the chip-pity and apparently the instinct to care for him, now, too. Stupid Spike's stupid fault, all of it, and she's an idiot to have let herself end up here. In bed -- _in her mother’s bed_ \-- with Spike. 

  _Stupid, stupid, stupid_.

 Belatedly, Buffy reaches up to slap him across the face, to claw him right across his stupidly pretty mouth and _get him off her_ , but he stops her with only one hand, frighteningly quick.  

Spike laughs wholeheartedly, then, and she’s never seen that from him before.  Laughs delightedly, delighted with _her_ , but, _what the hell_?  Has she dropped the plot again somewhere?  Missed something vital and so obvious that even Spike could find it, half-awake?

“No, love.  You don’t mean that.”  His thumb caresses the pulse at her wrist.  Buffy relaxes hopelessly into his hold.

No, she really doesn’t.  A girl doesn’t give out free shirtless back massages to a guy she intends to slap, and a Slayer doesn’t bother to hate or pity or care about a vamp she doesn’t also sort of like.  If it was any other way, he would be dust and forgotten three years ago.

Another thing they both know.

She’s been so _stupid_.

Spike releases her to take care of the impossible button fly, _snap_ - _snap_ - _snap_ , and smiles at her up through his eyelashes, sweet enough to melt, and then they’re both naked.  Strangely, this doesn’t occur to Buffy until she has her fist entirely around his bare cock and Spike’s head drops helplessly to rest between her unclothed breasts. Arcing against her grip, or maybe into it, he breathes out something that is very nearly a word.  His nose is sort of cold against her flushed skin.  

She doesn’t mind, not even a little.

Because his nakedness reminds her that he _is_ vulnerable, sometimes.  It makes her think that maybe this man, with his demons and his insomnia, who needed help or maybe comfort and for some reason needed it from _her_ , might have some relation to the real Spike after all.

The hand that isn’t busy with his erection slides fondly through his bleached curls, earning Buffy an appreciative nuzzle and a quiet, pleasured sigh.

Then Spike remembers himself and the vulnerability is banished in favour of his mouth on her skin, licking and whispering broken, coarse things that she doesn’t quite catch.  His cool hands are wandering, soothing the soft curves of her breasts until she wants to scream.  When he finds the peak of one nipple with his teeth, she squeezes him quick and dirty in retaliation.  Teases him with her fingernails and just the hint of how she could tear him apart.

“Fuck,” the word could belong to either of them, or maybe both.  But it isn’t angry.

“God, Buffy... what are you...” his words condense on her neck as her hand moves up, up, down, “Jesus _fuck_.”

That’s it, apparently.  All he’s going to stand for, all the foreplay she gets.  He fumbles downward and finds her wet and -- _Jesus fuck indeed_ \-- aching, throbbing, _needing_ him. So impossibly far beyond desire that she just might be dying without him.  

Buffy is babbling now, but she thinks that she accurately conveys her urgency.  Judging by the fact that he doesn’t laugh in her face but slides one finger into her instead, and then two and then a third without pause, it’s entirely possible that Spike feels the same. 

“Now, now, _please_ ,” Neither of them is going to make it through this.  This precipice is going to kill them both; they are going to gasp themselves dry like fish, caught on each other.

One grating thrust and she’s full of him, full of _Spike_ , and everything tingles.  Buffy decides definitively that she does not want to die.  Ever.  She only wants more.  In a terrifying epiphany, Buffy wants _all_ of him and suddenly she’s playing this for keeps.

“Oh, my God, Spike...” she trails off, lost.  Undone.

“Are you... d’you need me to... stop?”  If Buffy’s in pain with wanting him, it’s nothing compared to the strain in Spike’s voice.  He has to fight for the words, but he means them.  Buffy can tell.

She can’t quite find her own voice, though, to tell him, _no, never stop, don’t ever_ , so she clutches the back of his head and drags him down desperately to meet her lips.  The achey throb of him inside her is wonderful, but it’s the soft sound in the back of his throat that makes all the desperation and all the wanting instantly worth it.

“You,” Spike pulls back, thrusts blindingly hard and tries to unmake both of them, “you are the most exquisite thing I have ever seen.”

“Not,” Buffy manages to pant. 

“Are too,” the laughter is back, or possibly it has never left him.  Buffy loves it.  “And, you want to know the best part?”

“No.”  She clenches around him, as hard as she can, hoping for diversion.

“Ohhhh.  Yeah, Christ, do that... shit!” he gasps when she does it again, harder. “The best part, _Slayer_ ,” he grinds down with a growl, twisting, and they both lose track for a second.  His mouth brushes hers absently, wet with mingled saliva. 

He’s so deep, so close, and when he tries to withdraw it’s like something is tearing.

“Best... part?” Buffy can barely jerk the words out around her own breathlessness.

“Right.  _God_.  Best part is,” Spike half-laughs, half-moans, “you like me back.”

 

Hah. 

Well, yes, _obviously_ she does, and three days ago Buffy would have been freaking out about it.  She might still be freaking out about it, actually, but she only has so much brainpower to spare from focusing on how phenomenal Spike is.  On his mouth and his cock and his throat and, god, his _skin_. The salt taste of him.  The way that every time he moves, she feels him all the way through her and it’s like the lightning and the pause just after, all at once. 

The little thought that’s left over is mostly devoted to being surprised that he hasn’t said anything crude yet.

And Buffy is grateful.  She can’t stop touching him, which would just be humiliating if he was being all rude about it.  Instead, she traces singed fingertips over his shoulders, his lower back, his nipples, _everywhere_ , liking the tactile electricity of him, and his eyes get dangerous again.  She makes a mental note about the Spike-nipples thing and then pinches as hard as she can. 

It makes him snarl, which is freakin’ _hot_ , and slam downward against all her most sensitive places, which is just...   Her back arches in total involuntary surrender.  White, bright, searing nothing; Buffy wonders if he can really, possibly, be as affected.  

Not changing his rhythm, Spike runs one hand shuddery-slow all the way down her belly to her clit and, very deliberately, pinches her right back.

Something snaps then, her head snaps back and her eyes snap open, and Buffy is gone.  There’s words on her lips that cannot be hers, praises and insults and, _SpikeSpikeSpike_ , only his name, and he answers with his hips hard against hers.  Just as gone as she is, just as ecstatic.

He is coming, too, ragged, calling her _Buffy_ in a voice that doesn’t quite seem to be under his control.  She’s done for.  Even as she feels him gentle, even as she starts to come down in little shocks, buzzing, Buffy knows that any chance she ever had against him is lost. 

She slides back into herself, under him, still surrounding him, and almost wants to cry.

 

And, after everything, Spike is still laughing. Goddamn him. It’s the same laughter, breathless, low and soft and mostly in his eyes, now, but Buffy would kill him for it if she didn’t feel so _glorious_.  She resents him again already, resents the careless, meticulous hands that are still caressing her skin and making her sigh upwards into his touch even though they are both absolutely spent.  Oh, God, but that is really, really nice.  All... warm and fuzzy.

If he stops, if he _ever_ stops touching her, she _will_ kill him.

 

Instead, Spike rolls to the side and takes her with him, pulling Buffy forward into the surprisingly steadying solidness of his embrace.

Face to face with those half-asleep, mirthful blue eyes, it’s clear that he is still insane.  Or at least, still not himself; nothing about the real Spike could ever be so kind.  It’s extremely unfortunate, then, that he’s so beautiful like this. 

Buffy hides her face in the planes of his collarbone, away from his scrutiny, and it is a move born purely out of self preservation. 

But, “Oh, good,” Spike says when she settles, his voice very soft.  “Could use a bit more sleep.”

“You weren’t supposed to be awake yet at all.” Buffy’s lips must be tickling him; Spike squirms a little.

“Yeah.  Well.” He chuckles and tugs her fully on top of him.  “Anybody ever told you that you’re a very distracting chit to try and sleep next to?  You can’t help it; you just exude... deliciousness.”

“Why -- why are you still laughing at me?”

Buffy can feel him inhale to say something, a real explanation, maybe, and then change his mind.  “Not at _you_ , sweet.  Go to sleep.  Some of us are still lacking our beauty rest.”

One hand is still wandering up and down her nude spine in lazy strokes that make her want to purr against the skin of his throat and never, ever leave him.  Up and up and down, slow as silk or honey. 

She falls asleep first, probably, because she isn’t aware of him stopping.


End file.
